With just under a week to go in October we are still seeing a good pace for new car sales in October.  While seeing good sales numbers is great news, there is even stronger news in the underlying story.  The auto sector is seeing these impressive gains while doing so with fewer incentive dollars.  The bottom line is that instead of seeing good numbers that are artificially inflated by consumer incentives, we are seeing REAL sales happening.  That is a positive for the sector and for SiriusXM.

TrueCar released its October forecast today, and while the numbers are not as high as the mid month forecast issued by Edmunds, the numbers are quite close.  Edmunds was looking for 1,150,000 or so at mid-month, while TrueCar is looking for 1,137,000 with a week to go.  Using either number the story for SiriusXM is essentially the same.  Auto sales are doing well, and thus the company should have little problem meeting 2012 subscriber guidance of 1.8 million.  Here is what TrueCar is looking for:

  • For October 2012, new light vehicle sales in the U.S. (including fleet) is expected to be 1,137,744 units, up 11.5 percent from October 2011 and down 4.2 percent from September 2012 (on an unadjusted basis)
  • The October 2012 forecast translates into a Seasonally Adjusted Annualized Rate (“SAAR”) of 14.9 million new car sales, up from 13.3 million in October 2011 and down from 14.94 million in September 2012
  • Retail sales are up 8.6 percent compared to October 2011 and down 3.9 percent from September 2012
  • Fleet and rental sales are expected to make up 18.1 percent of total industry sales in October 2012
  • The industry average incentive spending per unit will be approximately $2,353 in October 2012, which represents an decrease of 5.6 percent from October 2011 and decrease of 2.9 percent from September 2012
  • Used car sales are estimated to be 3,220,457*, up 10.8 percent from October 2011 and down 8.3 percent from September 2012.  The ratio of new to used is estimated to be 1:3 for October 2012

“New car sales are on automatic pilot. October was a robust start to Q4 sales with most manufacturers posting double digit gains while continuing to lower incentives spending,” said Jesse Toprak, senior analyst at TrueCar.com. “We expect this recovery momentum to continue into the next year, with 2013 sales reaching 15.5 million units.”

The big take-away here is that Q4 is off to a good start and signals are indicating that the auto sector is healthy and in a full blown recovery without the need of deep discounting.   Final October Sales figures will be released the first two days of November and of course you will get the news and breakdowns right here from SiriusBuzz.